


An Impossible Choice

by chrisqzs



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, but really only hints, hints at character death, hints at self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 14:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrisqzs/pseuds/chrisqzs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You lock the door to the café, or at least you try as you fumble with your keys in the darkness, cursing the city for the streetlight that burnt out two weeks ago still hadn't been fixed. Finally you find the right key and successfully lock the door. You turn and walk down the street, whistling a tune from that musical you saw a few nights ago as you make your way home. Too bad you aren't quite alone on the street. Too bad you don't see Montparnasse in the alley you just passed. Too bad he saw you. And it's too bad he needs someone to make a choice for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Impossible Choice

You feel a rough hand grip your face. The room is dark, you think, and then you realize your eyes are closed. When you open them, you see you are in a windowless room, a basement maybe, and you are not alone. 

You know the man in front of you; you’ve seen his face posted across the internet and through the six o’clock news for the past week or so. You can’t think of his name, but you know it’s him. His crime is still fresh in your mind: the spontaneous murder of his girlfriend of three years and her younger sister. The courts deemed him a high functioning psychopath, or something of the nature. You didn’t really pay too much attention to his story. You didn’t expect to ever wind up here.

Where is here? You think. You twist and turn in your chair, all too aware that the psycho is watching you as you continue to scan your surroundings. You see a rolling desk off to the side, with a laptop open and running sitting on top. You begin to turn your head again to look at the man, but a sharp pain in your head turns everything black again.

You remember his name.

_____

It’s dark.

It’s cold.

He’s alone. 

Courfeyrac tries to sit up, but hits his head on something before he can get more than two feet up. Laying back down on the hard surface he tries to shimmy up, assuming he’s fallen asleep under Bahorel’s coffee table again, only to hit his head again. Courfeyrac sighs and lifts his hands to feel for an edge and realizes two things: there is no edge, and this is not Bahorel’s coffee table. 

His stomach drops as he begins to trace the cold surface above and around him: two feet up (maybe), three feet across, and almost six feet long. 

He’s in a coffin . 

He’s buried in a coffin. Alive. 

His heart rate increases and he can feel the air get thicker and thicker until he can no longer inhale it. He kicks and scratches wildly at what feels like glass around him and he doesn’t stop until he hears knocking coming from one side. 

_____ 

Jehan opens his eyes and sees nothing. He feels the cold of his kitchen floor and assumes he has sleepwalked there and decided it was a better resting place than his bed and hey, who was he to disregard his subconscious. So instead of try to go back to his own bed he curls into a ball and calls his cat, Dog, to help keep him warm, but Dog doesn’t come. 

Jehan thinks nothing of it, and curled in even tighter, closing his eyes to sleep again.

He wakes up again by a frantic knocking. It’s not the fact that someone is knocking that wakes him, it is that they aren’t knocking on his door.

Or his floor.

Or really anything in his apartment. 

He tries to stand up but cracks his nose on something before he can even sit up. Holding back the blood with one hand, he lays down again and feels around with the other, fingers sticking to the edges of what he feels are a ceiling and walls, along with the base he is laying on. His heart sinks when he realizes he’s in what appears to be a coffin and he begins to shake. But the knocking is still going on and Jehan can’t help but wonder who is just to his right, so he does the only thing he can do.

With a shaky hand, he finds the right wall and knocks on it until the other person stops.  
_____

 

“Good, you’re awake,” you hear Montparnasse say and you know you are defiantly not awake because there is no way this is reality and-

The same rough hand as before grabs your face and turns it to face the laptop you remember seeing earlier, only now the desk it was on has been rolled so close you could touch it if your hands weren’t tied up. With nothing more to do, you watch the screen.

_____

 

Courfeyrac stops thrashing around when he hears the other presence to his left. With a hand he reaches out for the corresponding wall and knocks quietly in response. When he hears another knock from the other side he has to bite back a gasp. 

He knows that knock. 

In the darkness he could visualize the scared, shaking fist that tapped on the glass. He could see the long boney arm that was attached to the hand that didn’t enjoy being in a fist, the torso so small ribs poked out from beneath the lyrics of a poem on the left side, the long delicate neck and the head with the blond braid that was probably all disheveled and a face which hurt for him to imagine. 

“Jehan?” he whispered. No response. “Jehan?” he said a little louder. Still nothing. He repeated the name again and again but elicited no response from the dark wall. 

_____ 

Jehan almost cries when the knocking was directed at him. Well, if he hadn’t already been crying, he’d be close to tears now. He knows who’s on the other side and it pains him to believe the curly haired boy he loves is in the same state he is. Cold, scared, alone.

Alone.

Jehan realizes he is alone and tries desperately to call his boyfriend’s name when his knocking stopped responding, knowing full well he is destroying his voice but he doesn’t care right now. He wants to see Courfeyrac, to hear his voice again and to tell him it’ll be alright, even though he knows it won’t. 

He begins shaking more and more violently with each passing minute until he can no longer safely hold his head up. He rests his flushed face on the cold sides of what Jehan ruefully realizes will turn into his coffin.

_____ 

 

You watch the green-tinted screens in horror as the two men- boys, really- scream each other’s name, but cannot hear. They cannot see. You try to find the words to say, but nothing will come out no matter how hard you try.

You know them.

Not well, of course. You serve them and their friends coffee and wine almost every day at the Musain. You could name each and every one of those students, tell their job (or lack thereof in some cases), significant other, and how many siblings they had. You’ve watched from behind the bar as the two boys on the screen fell in love. Watched the shorter haired one (Courfeyrac was his name, you remind yourself) serenade Jehan the first time he asked him out, repressing a smile at Courfeyrac’s definition of a serenade because you’re pretty sure singing “My Heart Will Go On” while playing the ukulele is hardly considered one, but it was adorable none the less. 

But those memories only add to the pain you feel now as you watch them each cry out for the other again and again.

Montparnasse smiles and you shiver. You don’t know him, but you know nothing good can come out of his smile.

“Let the games begin, then. Shall we?” he says as he flips a switch.

_____

 

A light flips on suddenly, and Courfeyrac has to squeeze his eyes shut so as to not go blind. When he opens his eyes again he is surprised his heart is still in his body at the sight, the confirmation that both he and Jehan are indeed, buried alive. 

And they can’t get to each other.

Courfeyrac yells out, beating on the glass barrier between himself and Jehan while the smaller boy covers his face with his arms. Courfeyrac stops his senseless beating, realizing he won’t be able to break the barrier, and looks over at his boyfriend, cringing ever so slightly when he realizes his watch is no longer on Jehan’s wrist, and the shaking boy will be stuck seeing his old scars. 

As soon as the beating stops, Jehan looks through his arms to see Courfeyrac curled up against the barrier, forehead flattened against it. Through the circumstances Jehan smiles for a moment before scooting closer, resting his forehead against Courf’s through the glass and placing a hand on the barrier. 

Courfeyrac smiles a little too and places his hand in the same place.

_____

 

“I don’t understand,” you finally dare to say, unwilling to take your eyes off the monitor. The laugh that comes from Montparnasse is enough to send chills down your spine and the chair is spun around to face the psychopathic killer.

Montparnasse looks you dead in the eye and smiles sickeningly, “it’s a simple choice, really. One or two. Left or right. Courfeyrac or Prouvaire.”

“What?” you stammer, fearing you are assuming correctly.

“This is going to end one of three ways. Either Prouvaire lives and Courfeyrac dies, or Prouvaire dies and Courfeyrac lives…”

“… or…?” you say, praying for a more peaceful option.

Montparnasse’s smile quickly extinguishes that hope. “Or the barrier gets removed. The two lovebirds get to touch each other again. Then boom.” He says, emphasizing the point with a hand gesture.

You glance at the laptop again, at the two people in the world you can’t imagine hurting. “Why?” you say almost to yourself.

“Why do anything?” Montparnasse asks. “’Cause it’s fun to watch them squirm.”

_____

 

The air is getting thicker and thicker in the coffin, Jehan thinks while he watches Courfeyrac. Each breath for him becomes harder and harder, and he can barely make out Courfeyrac mouthing the word “breathe” over and over again. But each breath for Jehan is like sucking in cement, and he can feel his heart pumping out of his chest harder and harder after each passing second and he suddenly becomes away that the air he’s breathing may be poisoned, that he may be breathing in his own death. 

This is enough to cause him to lash out. Without warning Jehan starts to kick and punch at the walls of the coffin, specifically the one separating him from Courfeyrac. Jehan actually proves stronger than Courfeyrac and manages to crack some of the glass on the side, causing his knuckle to bleed as well as his nose, but Jehan doesn’t notice. He can’t focus on anything just his overwhelming desire to breathe in fresh air, to touch his boyfriend and to see the sky. He wonders if the stars are out now, and looks down to check his watch.

Instead he sees the jagged marks on his wrist and he shudders, blinking away tears and the growing empty feeling inside of him. He tries to curl into a ball, but the glass box, the coffin, is too narrow and his knees hit the glass. Jehan lets out a sob and shuts his eyes tight before rocking back and forth, trying to resist all the urges building up inside of him. 

A quiet tap on the glass barrier wakes Jehan from his estranged meditation. The poet looks over and sees Courfeyrac, resting his head on the glass again, that look on his face. The look that pretty much got Courfeyrac out of any trouble, the little shit, and could make Jehan smile under any normal circumstance. 

But this wasn’t a normal circumstance.

And the look only made Jehan hurt more under this one. But it made comforting Courfeyrac, or at least trying to, Jehan’s top priority. Reaching out to touch the glass with his hand, Jehan moved in and matched Courfeyrac’s position and closed his eyes, pretending they were home, together. 

_____

“You can’t possible make me choose,” you squeak, afraid of the consequences. Montparnasse laughs again and chills go down your spine.

“Why do they matter to you? They aren’t your friends. What do you have to lose?” 

He is right, you realize. They aren’t your friends. But you see them in the café almost every day. On open mic night you hear Jehan’s poetry and it makes you laugh and it makes you cry. You’ve only had the courage to talk to the young blond maybe once or twice, but you know. You know he knows. And as you absentmindedly scratch at your wrist you get an idea. A sick idea, one that is beyond stupid and ridiculous and your friends would think you’re crazy for even thinking it but before you can think otherwise you blurt out.

“What about me?”

Montparnasse makes a noise somewhere between a cough and a grunt, taken by surprise. “What?” he asks finally.

“What if you kill me instead?” you croak, too afraid to look anywhere but at the monitor, “or I kill myself before I choose.”

There is a silence, then, “if you kill yourself, then I choose for you.”

You gulp then take another deep breath and you think long and hard, well aware of the pair of dark eyes watching you. You think. You think of Jehan. You think of Courfeyrac. You met Courfeyrac through Jehan, actually. You remember seeing the difference in Jehan, knowing something was different and the moment Courfeyrac stepped in you knew it was him. You remember watching the two of them at their corner table, well aware your face was doing the thing, as they went on dates and watched as they went on more and more dates and fell more and more in love. 

You remember the morning (was it only a week ago?) when Jehan danced through the door and, laying himself on the empty counter, declared “I’m going to ask him to marry me.” His voice beyond excited. You remember, happily, pushing him off the counter. He had hit the ground but bounced right back up like a baby goat. He had been so eager, so full of life when he showed you the ring and it almost hurt you inside to remember the broken young poet he was years ago. 

It hurts you now too and you wonder if Jehan ever had the chance to propose. 

You don’t want to hurt Jehan. You don’t want to hurt Courfeyrac either. But to be brutally honest Jehan is you biggest concern. 

You want him to live.

You want him to be happy.

You take a deep breath and make your decision.

**Author's Note:**

> so I'm curious... What would you have chosen?


End file.
